OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Robust Evidence for Declining Disruptiveness: Assessing the Role of Zero-Backward-Citation Works
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2025
Year: 2025

We respond to Holst et al.'s (HATWG) critique that the observed decline in scientific disruptiveness demonstrated in Park et al. (PLF) stems from including works with zero backward citations (0-bcites). Applying their own advocated dataset, metric, and exclusion criteria, we demonstrate statistically and practically significant declines in disruptiveness that equal major benchmark transformations in science. Notably, we show that HATWG's own regression model -- designed specifically to address their concerns about 0-bcite works -- reveals highly significant declines for both papers (p<0.001) and patents (p<0.001), a finding they neither acknowledge nor interpret. Their critique is undermined by methodological deficiencies, including reliance on visual inspection without statistical assessment, and severe data quality issues in their SciSciNet dataset, which contains nearly three times more 0-bcite papers than our original data. HATWG's departure from established scientometric practices -- notably their inclusion of document types and fields known for poor metadata quality -- invalidates their conclusions. Monte Carlo simulations and additional analyses using multiple disruptiveness measures across datasets further validate the robustness of the declining trend. Our findings collectively demonstrate that the observed decline in disruptiveness is not an artifact of 0-bcite works but represents a substantive change in scientific and technological innovation patterns.
Quantifying First-Order Markov Violations in Noisy Reinforcement Learning: A Causal Discovery Approach
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

Reinforcement learning (RL) methods frequently assume that each new observation completely reflects the environment's state, thereby guaranteeing Markovian (one-step) transitions. In practice, partial observability or sensor/actuator noise often invalidates this assumption. This paper proposes a systematic methodology for detecting such violations, combining a partial correlation-based causal discovery process (PCMCI) with a novel Markov Violation score (MVS). The MVS measures multi-step dependencies that emerge when noise or incomplete state information disrupts the Markov property. Classic control tasks (CartPole, Pendulum, Acrobot) serve as examples to illustrate how targeted noise and dimension omissions affect both RL performance and measured Markov consistency. Surprisingly, even substantial observation noise sometimes fails to induce strong multi-lag dependencies in certain domains (e.g., Acrobot). In contrast, dimension-dropping investigations show that excluding some state variables (e.g., angular velocities in CartPole and Pendulum) significantly reduces returns and increases MVS, while removing other dimensions has minimal impact. These findings emphasize the importance of locating and safeguarding the most causally essential dimensions in order to preserve effective single-step learning. By integrating partial correlation tests with RL performance outcomes, the proposed approach precisely identifies when and where the Markov assumption is violated. This framework offers a principled mechanism for developing robust policies, informing representation learning, and addressing partial observability in real-world RL scenarios. All code and experimental logs are accessible for reproducibility (https://github.com/ucsb/markovianess).
1-Lipschitz Network Initialization for Certifiably Robust Classification Applications: A Decay Problem
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

This paper discusses the weight parametrization of two standard 1-Lipschitz network architectures, the Almost-Orthogonal-Layers (AOL) and the SDP-based Lipschitz Layers (SLL). It examines their impact on initialization for deep 1-Lipschitz feedforward networks, and discusses underlying issues surrounding this initialization. These networks are mainly used in certifiably robust classification applications to combat adversarial attacks by limiting the impact of perturbations on the classification output. Exact and upper bounds for the parameterized weight variance were calculated assuming a standard Normal distribution initialization; additionally, an upper bound was computed assuming a Generalized Normal Distribution, generalizing the proof for Uniform, Laplace, and Normal distribution weight initializations. It is demonstrated that the weight variance holds no bearing on the output variance distribution and that only the dimension of the weight matrices matters. Additionally, this paper demonstrates that the weight initialization always causes deep 1-Lipschitz networks to decay to zero.
QaSAL: QoS-aware State-Augmented Learnable Algorithms for Coexistence of 5G NR-U/Wi-Fi
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2025
Year: 2025

With the increasing demand for wireless connectivity, ensuring the efficient coexistence of multiple radio access technologies in shared unlicensed spectrum has become an important issue. This paper focuses on optimizing Medium Access Control (MAC) parameters to enhance the coexistence of 5G New Radio in Unlicensed Spectrum (NR-U) and Wi-Fi networks operating in unlicensed spectrum with multiple priority classes of traffic that may have varying quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. In this context, we tackle the coexistence parameter management problem by introducing a QoS-aware State-Augmented Learnable (QaSAL) framework, designed to improve network performance under various traffic conditions. Our approach augments the state representation with constraint information, enabling dynamic policy adjustments to enforce QoS requirements effectively. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of QaSAL in managing NR-U and Wi-Fi coexistence, demonstrating improved channel access fairness while satisfying a latency constraint for high-priority traffic.
Flow Matching for Medical Image Synthesis: Bridging the Gap Between Speed and Quality
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

Deep learning models have emerged as a powerful tool for various medical applications. However, their success depends on large, high-quality datasets that are challenging to obtain due to privacy concerns and costly annotation. Generative models, such as diffusion models, offer a potential solution by synthesizing medical images, but their practical adoption is hindered by long inference times. In this paper, we propose the use of an optimal transport flow matching approach to accelerate image generation. By introducing a straighter mapping between the source and target distribution, our method significantly reduces inference time while preserving and further enhancing the quality of the outputs. Furthermore, this approach is highly adaptable, supporting various medical imaging modalities, conditioning mechanisms (such as class labels and masks), and different spatial dimensions, including 2D and 3D. Beyond image generation, it can also be applied to related tasks such as image enhancement. Our results demonstrate the efficiency and versatility of this framework, making it a promising advancement for medical imaging applications. Code with checkpoints and a synthetic dataset (beneficial for classification and segmentation) is now available on: https://github.com/milad1378yz/MOTFM.
Why Johnny Signs with Next-Generation Tools: A Usability Case Study of Sigstore
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2025
Year: 2025

Software signing is the most robust method for ensuring the integrity and authenticity of components in a software supply chain. Traditional signing tools burdened practitioners with key management and signer identification, creating both usability challenges and security risks. A new class of next-generation signing tools has automated many of these concerns, but little is known about their usability and its effect on adoption and effectiveness in practice. A usability evaluation can clarify the extent to which next-generation designs succeed and highlight priorities for improvement. To fill this gap, we conducted a usability study of Sigstore, a pioneering and widely adopted exemplar of next-generation signing. Through interviews with 17 industry experts, we examined (1) the problems and advantages associated with practitioners' tooling choices, (2) how and why their signing-tool usage has evolved over time, and (3) the contexts that cause usability concerns. Our findings illuminate the usability factors of next-generation signing tools and yield recommendations for toolmakers, adopting organizations, and the research community. Notably, components of next-generation tooling exhibit different levels of maturity and readiness for adoption, and integration flexibility is a common pain point, but potentially mitigable through plugins and APIs. Our results will help next-generation signing toolmakers further strengthen software supply chain security.
Abstract Rendering: Computing All that is Seen in Gaussian Splat Scenes
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

We introduce abstract rendering, a method for computing a set of images by rendering a scene from a continuously varying range of camera positions. The resulting abstract image-which encodes an infinite collection of possible renderings-is represented using constraints on the image matrix, enabling rigorous uncertainty propagation through the rendering process. This capability is particularly valuable for the formal verification of vision-based autonomous systems and other safety-critical applications. Our approach operates on Gaussian splat scenes, an emerging representation in computer vision and robotics. We leverage efficient piecewise linear bound propagation to abstract fundamental rendering operations, while addressing key challenges that arise in matrix inversion and depth sorting-two operations not directly amenable to standard approximations. To handle these, we develop novel linear relational abstractions that maintain precision while ensuring computational efficiency. These abstractions not only power our abstract rendering algorithm but also provide broadly applicable tools for other rendering problems. Our implementation, AbstractSplat, is optimized for scalability, handling up to 750k Gaussians while allowing users to balance memory and runtime through tile and batch-based computation. Compared to the only existing abstract image method for mesh-based scenes, AbstractSplat achieves 2-14x speedups while preserving precision. Our results demonstrate that continuous camera motion, rotations, and scene variations can be rigorously analyzed at scale, making abstract rendering a powerful tool for uncertainty-aware vision applications.
How Deep is Love in LLMs' Hearts? Exploring Semantic Size in Human-like Cognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2025
Year: 2025

How human cognitive abilities are formed has long captivated researchers. However, a significant challenge lies in developing meaningful methods to measure these complex processes. With the advent of large language models (LLMs), which now rival human capabilities in various domains, we are presented with a unique testbed to investigate human cognition through a new lens. Among the many facets of cognition, one particularly crucial aspect is the concept of semantic size, the perceived magnitude of both abstract and concrete words or concepts. This study seeks to investigate whether LLMs exhibit similar tendencies in understanding semantic size, thereby providing insights into the underlying mechanisms of human cognition. We begin by exploring metaphorical reasoning, comparing how LLMs and humans associate abstract words with concrete objects of varying sizes. Next, we examine LLMs' internal representations to evaluate their alignment with human cognitive processes. Our findings reveal that multi-modal training is crucial for LLMs to achieve more human-like understanding, suggesting that real-world, multi-modal experiences are similarly vital for human cognitive development. Lastly, we examine whether LLMs are influenced by attention-grabbing headlines with larger semantic sizes in a real-world web shopping scenario. The results show that multi-modal LLMs are more emotionally engaged in decision-making, but this also introduces potential biases, such as the risk of manipulation through clickbait headlines. Ultimately, this study offers a novel perspective on how LLMs interpret and internalize language, from the smallest concrete objects to the most profound abstract concepts like love. The insights gained not only improve our understanding of LLMs but also provide new avenues for exploring the cognitive abilities that define human intelligence.
Nucleolus Credit Assignment for Effective Coalitions in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2025
Year: 2025

In cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), agents typically form a single grand coalition based on credit assignment to tackle a composite task, often resulting in suboptimal performance. This paper proposed a nucleolus-based credit assignment grounded in cooperative game theory, enabling the autonomous partitioning of agents into multiple small coalitions that can effectively identify and complete subtasks within a larger composite task. Specifically, our designed nucleolus Q-learning could assign fair credits to each agent, and the nucleolus Q-operator provides theoretical guarantees with interpretability for both learning convergence and the stability of the formed small coalitions. Through experiments on Predator-Prey and StarCraft scenarios across varying difficulty levels, our approach demonstrated the emergence of multiple effective coalitions during MARL training, leading to faster learning and superior performance in terms of win rate and cumulative rewards especially in hard and super-hard environments, compared to four baseline methods. Our nucleolus-based credit assignment showed the promise for complex composite tasks requiring effective subteams of agents.
Uncoordinated Access to Serverless Computing in MEC Systems for IoT
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2025
Year: 2025

Edge computing is a promising solution to enable low-latency IoT applications, by shifting computation from remote data centers to local devices, less powerful but closer to the end user devices. However, this creates the challenge on how to best assign clients to edge nodes offering compute capabilities. So far, two antithetical architectures are proposed: centralized resource orchestration or distributed overlay. In this work we explore a third way, called uncoordinated access, which consists in letting every device exploring multiple opportunities, to opportunistically embrace the heterogeneity of network and load conditions towards diverse edge nodes. In particular, our contribution is intended for emerging serverless IoT applications, which do not have a state on the edge nodes executing tasks. We model the proposed system as a set of M/M/1 queues and show that it achieves a smaller jitter delay than single edge node allocation. Furthermore, we compare uncoordinated access with state-of-the-art centralized and distributed alternatives in testbed experiments under more realistic conditions. Based on the results, our proposed approach, which requires a tiny fraction of the complexity of the alternatives in both the device and network components, is very effective in using the network resources, while incurring only a small penalty in terms of increased compute load and high percentiles of delay.
Few-shot crack image classification using clip based on bayesian optimization
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

This study proposes a novel few-shot crack image classification model based on CLIP and Bayesian optimization. By combining multimodal information and Bayesian approach, the model achieves efficient classification of crack images in a small number of training samples. The CLIP model employs its robust feature extraction capabilities to facilitate precise classification with a limited number of samples. In contrast, Bayesian optimisation enhances the robustness and generalization of the model, while reducing the reliance on extensive labelled data. The results demonstrate that the model exhibits robust performance across a diverse range of dataset scales, particularly in the context of small sample sets. The study validates the potential of the method in civil engineering crack classification.
A Survey of Adversarial Defenses in Vision-based Systems: Categorization, Methods and Challenges
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

Adversarial attacks have emerged as a major challenge to the trustworthy deployment of machine learning models, particularly in computer vision applications. These attacks have a varied level of potency and can be implemented in both white box and black box approaches. Practical attacks include methods to manipulate the physical world and enforce adversarial behaviour by the corresponding target neural network models. Multiple different approaches to mitigate different kinds of such attacks are available in the literature, each with their own advantages and limitations. In this survey, we present a comprehensive systematization of knowledge on adversarial defenses, focusing on two key computer vision tasks: image classification and object detection. We review the state-of-the-art adversarial defense techniques and categorize them for easier comparison. In addition, we provide a schematic representation of these categories within the context of the overall machine learning pipeline, facilitating clearer understanding and benchmarking of defenses. Furthermore, we map these defenses to the types of adversarial attacks and datasets where they are most effective, offering practical insights for researchers and practitioners. This study is necessary for understanding the scope of how the available defenses are able to address the adversarial threats, and their shortcomings as well, which is necessary for driving the research in this area in the most appropriate direction, with the aim of building trustworthy AI systems for regular practical use-cases.
Progressive Sparse Attention: Algorithm and System Co-design for Efficient Attention in LLM Serving
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

Processing long contexts has become a critical capability for modern large language models (LLMs). However, serving long-context LLMs comes with significant inference costs due to the high memory overhead of the key-value (KV) cache. Existing work leverages dynamic sparse attention algorithms (DSAes) to mitigate the KV cache overhead, but these algorithms rely on top-$k$ KV cache selection, which results in a trade-off between accuracy and efficiency. A larger $k$ improves accuracy but decreases efficiency, while a smaller $k$ boosts efficiency but compromises accuracy. To overcome this trade-off, this paper presents PSA, a $\underline{P}$rogressive $\underline{S}$parse $\underline{A}$ttention mechanism that integrates algorithmic innovations with system co-design to achieve both high inference accuracy and improved efficiency in LLM serving. The PSA algorithm adaptively adjusts the KV cache budget of different tokens and layers according to their real attention weight distributions, rather than relying on a fixed budget $k$. This enables high accuracy while minimizing KV cache usage. To further enhance execution efficiency, we introduce a pipelined iteration scheme that reduces CPU-GPU interleaving and synchronization overhead during PSA computation. Additionally, we implement unified GPU memory management that optimizes PSA's memory utilization by accounting for uneven memory requirements across different model layers. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that PSA reduces KV cache usage for attention computation by up to 2.4$\times$ and 8.8$\times$, and increases end-to-end serving throughput by up to 1.4$\times$ and 2.0$\times$, compared to state-of-the-art DSAes and systems without sparse attention, respectively.
Detection of Customer Interested Garments in Surveillance Video using Computer Vision
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

One of the basic requirements of humans is clothing and this approach aims to identify the garments selected by customer during shopping, from surveillance video. The existing approaches to detect garments were developed on western wear using datasets of western clothing. They do not address Indian garments due to the increased complexity. In this work, we propose a computer vision based framework to address this problem through video surveillance. The proposed framework uses the Mixture of Gaussians background subtraction algorithm to identify the foreground present in a video frame. The visual information present in this foreground is analysed using computer vision techniques such as image segmentation to detect the various garments, the customer is interested in. The framework was tested on a dataset, that comprises of CCTV videos from a garments store. When presented with raw surveillance footage, the proposed framework demonstrated its effectiveness in detecting the interest of customer in choosing their garments by achieving a high precision and recall.
Rehearse With User: Personalized Opinion Summarization via Role-Playing based on Large Language Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2025
Year: 2025

Personalized opinion summarization is crucial as it considers individual user interests while generating product summaries. Recent studies show that although large language models demonstrate powerful text summarization and evaluation capabilities without the need for training data, they face difficulties in personalized tasks involving long texts. To address this, \textbf{Rehearsal}, a personalized opinion summarization framework via LLMs-based role-playing is proposed. Having the model act as the user, the model can better understand the user's personalized needs. Additionally, a role-playing supervisor and practice process are introduced to improve the role-playing ability of the LLMs, leading to a better expression of user needs. Furthermore, through suggestions from virtual users, the summary generation is intervened, ensuring that the generated summary includes information of interest to the user, thus achieving personalized summary generation. Experiment results demonstrate that our method can effectively improve the level of personalization in large model-generated summaries.
Customer Analytics using Surveillance Video
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2025
Year: 2025

The analysis of sales information, is a vital step in designing an effective marketing strategy. This work proposes a novel approach to analyse the shopping behaviour of customers to identify their purchase patterns. An extended version of the Multi-Cluster Overlapping k-Means Extension (MCOKE) algorithm with weighted k-Means algorithm is utilized to map customers to the garments of interest. The age & gender traits of the customer; the time spent and the expressions exhibited while selecting garments for purchase, are utilized to associate a customer or a group of customers to a garments they are interested in. Such study on the customer base of a retail business, may help in inferring the products of interest of their consumers, and enable them in developing effective business strategies, thus ensuring customer satisfaction, loyalty, increased sales and profits.